Advanced Players: How are you beating normal?

[Svankensen]

Yep, forgot about heavy lasers, those are very good indeed. About the combination of beams and lasers, its kinda situational. In the best scenarios, like with glaive beam and burst lasers, you can actually fire a volley of lasers and get a recharge just a few seconds after the glaive has charged completely. I agree about the sinergy of attack drones and ion or beams, but most of the time that works in engi ships, In the others having a single attack drone means half your drone allowance.

[Neoviper]

I've found it useful to keep an attack drone around to help with busting shields, had a red tail run where not too many shield countering weapons dropped, later on I ended up getting an ion bomb and a breach bomb which helped a lot. Before that however, I would time my drones attack with the laser volley, then beam across shields, weapons, etc. piloting also helps since it goes down easy and ensures your next volley will hit.

[Zaffre]

I tend to use a mix of bomb weaponry coupled with beams or burst lasers; Anti-Ship drones if possible. The bombs are to help destroy the shields, and the lasers, drones, and beams are primary offense. I never really use missiles because they're vulnerable to defense drones.

Boarders help to reap more scrap from ship encounters, especially early on. A combination of an Ion Bomb, some Burst Laser IIs, and an Anti-Ship II works well for me. If possible, a Glaive or Hull Beam works better than the drone.

In a nutshell: Ion Bombs and Burst Laser IIs wins the game.

[Madhax]

I've found remarkably consistent success after getting the hang of the Zoltan B cruiser. Zoltan shields+high evade are an incredibly powerful and lucrative combo, as you'll beat most ships without them getting through the shield.

As for weapons, as powerful as they are I'm not a huge fan of missles and bombs. I like the Zoltan B's combination of ion blasts and beam weaponry, and I just finished a hilariously easy win on normal with my final setup being ion blast/ion blast mkII/Glaive. Hardest part of the boss fight was avoiding accidentally killing my boarding party with the glaive. I barely took any hits the entire game.

[headcase]

As well as all the strategy posted, luck has a large impact. The scrap you make, as well as the locations of and merchandise in the shops (especially early on), make the difference between a not too hard session and an extremely tough one. Getting a feel for priorities and being flexible with your equipment set will certainly increase your chances. I've won a couple times out of 15 or 20 normal attempts (still only have the Kestral, Torus, and Fed ships) and in some of those sessions I didn't get close the amount of scrap needed to survive the later waves, but probably a really good player could pull out wins pretty consistently with most ships.

[hybridfive]

I'm curious to see if other people follow my behavior.

1. I always upgrade my shields as soon as I get 50 scrap. I find that with two shields, around 60-70% of my sector 1 and 2 battles are ones that I can take power off my engines (or oxygen, to keep some power on my engines for avoiding missiles) and throw them into my shields to avoid any chance of getting hit. Minimizing the scrap I have to spend on hull repairs early on sets me up to have the scrap to pour into whatever upgrades I need to get through the mid-game.

Do you also farm piloting and engineering experience once you have two shields?

The principle is pretty easy. Step 1, get two shields. Step 2, find a ship that can not damage your when you have two shields. Examples are ships like single light/heavy laser + pike beam or single light/heavy laser + ion cannon I. Step 3, walk away from the computer for about an hour. When you come back, the enemy ship will have fired enough shots so that you managed to dodge thirty of them. You have one crewmember with max piloting, one with max engines, and one with max shields somewhere in sector 1. It's worth approximately as much as upgrading your engine twice, but it's free. It saves you a lot of damage over the rest of the game, and generally puts you ahead of the growth curve.

[Svankensen]

I've only done it once, for the "no pause" challenge, it felt like cheating otherwise. It is very situational since i wasnt spending early in shields, (i dont think it is necesary) but i did find myself against a low attack ship in sector 3 or so. It works wonders. As an aside, it only takes about 15~20 minutes.

[Madhax]

I'm curious to see if other people follow my behavior.

1. I always upgrade my shields as soon as I get 50 scrap. I find that with two shields, around 60-70% of my sector 1 and 2 battles are ones that I can take power off my engines (or oxygen, to keep some power on my engines for avoiding missiles) and throw them into my shields to avoid any chance of getting hit. Minimizing the scrap I have to spend on hull repairs early on sets me up to have the scrap to pour into whatever upgrades I need to get through the mid-game.

Do you also farm piloting and engineering experience once you have two shields?

The principle is pretty easy. Step 1, get two shields. Step 2, find a ship that can not damage your when you have two shields. Examples are ships like single light/heavy laser + pike beam or single light/heavy laser + ion cannon I. Step 3, walk away from the computer for about an hour. When you come back, the enemy ship will have fired enough shots so that you managed to dodge thirty of them. You have one crewmember with max piloting, one with max engines, and one with max shields somewhere in sector 1. It's worth approximately as much as upgrading your engine twice, but it's free. It saves you a lot of damage over the rest of the game, and generally puts you ahead of the growth curve.

It's a strategy that I'm aware of, but I don't like using it. I prefer to earn experience over the course of the game, not all at once right at the beginning. To this end, I usually put off upgrading shields for a while, preferring instead to upgrade engines early to maximize experience gained for dodges.

[S.K. Ren]

Yeah. I just got my first Victory (on Normal as well) and did exactly that. Started with The Kestrel and after farming skills I got lucky and found another Burst Laser II and a Heavy laser.

System upgrades I went for Engine Level 5 and Shield Level 3(6).

My Augs were Auto-Loader(Bought in Sector 2) and Recovery Arm (picked up from Slug Cruiser Quest in Sector 5 or 6) for the most part I hoarded missiles and only used my laser until sector 5+.

The Mothership fight was almost tense mostly because I did stupid things.

First fight I just focused on Shields then Engines, I took about 25% damage but I failed to notice my O2 room was dead and had a breach before jumping off to fight the Mothership a second time. This time I was taken down to 1HP and almost lost 3 of my guys to a deactivated Medbay(No I did not get the achievement, I forgot and spent some salvage on Missiles so I couldn't afford a full heal) Third time was Auto-pilot. 2 salvos into the shields and then core the Engine. Easy victory.

[hybridfive]

Yeah. I just got my first Victory (on Normal as well) and did exactly that. Started with The Kestrel and after farming skills I got lucky and found another Burst Laser II and a Heavy laser.

System upgrades I went for Engine Level 5 and Shield Level 3(6).

My Augs were Auto-Loader(Bought in Sector 2) and Recovery Arm (picked up from Slug Cruiser Quest in Sector 5 or 6) for the most part I hoarded missiles and only used my laser until sector 5+.

The Mothership fight was almost tense mostly because I did stupid things.

First fight I just focused on Shields then Engines, I took about 25% damage but I failed to notice my O2 room was dead and had a breach before jumping off to fight the Mothership a second time. This time I was taken down to 1HP and almost lost 3 of my guys to a deactivated Medbay(No I did not get the achievement, I forgot and spent some salvage on Missiles so I couldn't afford a full heal) Third time was Auto-pilot. 2 salvos into the shields and then core the Engine. Easy victory.

You may kick yourself when I tell you: you should have sold the scrap arm at the sector 8 shop